The 2021 Carnival season is unusual. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of parades for just the 14th time in New Orleans history and the first time since 1979. Additionally, crowds are unsafe; so people cannot even gather together to celebrate.
Mardi Gras cannot be canceled, however; and people are rising to the occasion, including many who have created their own house floats. Our own Mardi Gras memories also cannot be canceled, of course. Former WWL Radio host and WWL-TV anchor Angela Hill shared some of her fondest memories with Scoot.
“My first memory of Mardi Gras was going to the costume place,” Hill said. “Channel 4 decided that Garland [Robinette] and I would start this three or four hour broadcast, which they had not been doing. So that was a big deal.
“I went to the costume shop – it used to be on St. Charles Avenue,” she continued. “The man who owned it used to be in hollywood, so he had all these fabulous costumes. I could have spent a month in there. I wore the trapeze outfit that was worn by Doris Day. I was so thrilled; it was unbelievable!”
Describing Mardi Gras to someone who has never been can be difficult. It's something you have to see for yourself.
“You have to experience it because if you do go other places and they say 'oh, we have 4th of July parades,'” Hill said. “The magnitude of what we do, the size of the floats, oh my god.”
But Hill has tried to convey a sense of what it's like, what the essence is; and the numerous house floats this year have helped her.
“I'm so proud of New Orleans,” Hill gushed. “I've sent videos out to everybody out of state. Look at what this city has done. They're not defeated by a pandemic. They're just thinking out of the box.”
“Our own Scott Colomb – this guy is so creative – lived on the Endymion route. Always had a fabulous event on that day, always invites phenomenal people,” she said. “[He] wanted me to be with [WWL-TV anchor] Karen Swensen and [former WWL-TV anchor] Sally Ann Roberts to introduce Irma Thomas, who was going to perform on his porch. That was the same day I was Grand Marshal of Iris.
“I got off of the float on Iris, was taken to the Hilton Hotel,” she went on. “He had a limo pick me and [my husband Irwin] up, drove through the madness, getting through the Endymion crowd, got to his house, and there is Irma Thomas. And, by god, Sally Ann and Karen Swensen and I introduced her. It was just magical.”
That wasn't the first time she was in a parade, though. She described the very first time she rode, with a St. Bernard krewe with Garland Robinette in 1976, not even a full year after she was hired at WWL-TV.
“Now, I hadn't been yet; I didn't know the protocols,” she explained. “They couldn't have been more gracious, more generous. We get on the float, we're halfway through; and I have to go to the ladies' room. I didn't know they didn't stop! There was no port-a-let.
“So I say to Garland, 'I think I have to go to the ladies' room,'” she continued. “He says, 'they're not going to stop.' Well I said 'they're going to have to stop!'
“I talked to the tractor driver. We stopped in front of this woman's home. I got off that float. She was standing there, and I said, 'may I use your ladies' room.' She said, 'absolutely.' [I] went in, went to the ladies' room, came back, parade continues. I'm telling you this because 15 years later, I meet somebody from St. Bernard. They said, 'Angela, Mrs. So-and-So, the lady whose house you went to the bathroom in, has a brass plaque in her bathroom that says 'Angela Hill went to the bathroom here.'”
Mardi Gras may be different this year, but it will always have that same spirit.
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